Manufacturers and service providers often employ field representatives to assist in the sales and marketing of goods and services. In order to provide these services, representatives are required to engage in direct customer contact. This contact enables the field representative to, among other things, establish a relationship with the customer, provide product education and obtain consumer feedback. On the other hand, it requires careful management of time to ensure coverage of the representative's territory.
In addition to ensuring time for contacts with customers in the territory, it is important for the field representative to maximize the quality of the contacts made while in that geographic locale. Likewise, establishing a schedule plan that provides an efficient daily schedule in terms of time required to travel from one meeting to another, or to match the schedule preferences of the customer in order to increase the potential that a series of sales calls will result in an increased number of successful customer contacts is a problem not adequately addressed in the art. The present invention addresses one or more of these needs and others.